Converging Identities the Creation of Argentine Sephardim in the Early Twentieth Century
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Converging Identities The Creation of Argentine Sephardim in the Early Twentieth Century Micaela Leah Gold April 26, 2019 Submitted to Professor James Krippner and Professor Linda Gerstein in partial fulfilment of the requirements of History 400: Senior Thesis Seminar at Haverford College i TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………...1 I. COMMUNAL AND PERSONAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF IDENTITY: CENTERING ARGENTINE SEPHARDIM…………………………………………………………………….13 a. Discourses of Community: Replacing Politics with Religion b. Argentine and Sephardic as Complementary Identities c. Estela Levy and Defining Identity in “Transitory Moments” d. Conclusion: A Return to Purim II. EXTERNAL IMPOSITIONS OF UNITY: INSTITUTIONAL JEWISHNESS………...…...34 a. Zionist Projections of Unity: Ariel Bensión and Israel b. Sabetay Djaen and the Importation of Unity c. Enforced Unity: B’nai B’rith and the Federation of Argentine Jewish Societies d. Conclusion: The Challenges of Imposed Unity III. TRANSNATIONAL SPACE: FORGING A HOME AND PRESERVING A HISTORY…58 a. Personal Remembrance and the Transnational b. Transnational Burial: Preserving Jewish Morocco and Moroccan Argentina c. Community Organizations and Confronting Borders d. Conclusion: Transnational Borders CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………………..74 APPENDIX…………………………………………………………………………………........78 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………..81 ii ABSTRACT This thesis discusses the formation of Sephardic Jewish identity in Argentina in the first decades of the twentieth century. Jews began migrating to Argentina in large waves beginning at the end of the nineteenth century, and between these initial years and the early 1930s the Jewish population grew exponentially. Although only 13% of Argentine Jews, the Sephardic Jews who left Morocco and the (former) Ottoman Empire in search of economic opportunity and refuge from growing tensions in their home communities emerged as a visible migrant community. The Argentine Sephardic newspaper Israel and the memoirs of Sephardic migrants to Argentina demonstrate the process of adjustment to life in Argentina and the daily experiences that led to the formation of identity. They settled in Argentina, established new communities, yet also retained affinities to the places from which they migrated. As a result, this Sephardic community represented a heterogeneous mix of cultural and linguistic practices. They all referred to themselves as Sephardim, but had lived in distinct communities for centuries. Upon their convergence in Argentina, Sephardim needed to redefine their community identity to fit with their new surroundings, including other Sephardim, Ashkenazim, and non-Jewish Argentines. While not homogenous, the community formed by the Sephardim in Argentina developed out of common experiences of diaspora and migration, and a desire to ensure the survival of Sephardic traditions. They negotiated a balance between their Sephardic and Argentine identities, resisted impositions of unity by external organizations, and formed their own transnational relationships between their homelands and Argentina. In doing so they formed an Argentine Sephardic identity specific to their surroundings. Therefore, the Sephardic community that emerged in the first decades of the twentieth century in Argentina fulfilled both the necessity of survival and the desire to unify around common experiences of migration and settlement in new surroundings. The formation of an Argentine Sephardic community demonstrates that new identities develop out of migration and the specific conditions of the sending and receiving communities. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The support, contributions, and guidance of many people made this thesis possible. I would like to thank my adviser James Krippner and my second reader Linda Gerstein for their advice as this thesis took form. Ariana Huberman gave considerable time and expertise on Argentine Jews in order to ensure that this thesis encompassed the realities of the community, and I am very grateful for all she has done. Thank you to Alexander Kitroeff, whose thesis seminar allowed me to consider the importance of migration and diaspora as it related to Argentine Sephardim. I would not have been able to write this thesis without the advice and support of Lisa Graham over the last four years. She helped me develop confidence in my ideas and the research and writing skills necessary for this project. This thesis was inspired by a class taught by Alicia Ramos González at IES Granada about the memory and identity of Sephardic Jews. Her class opened the door to further exploration of the formation of Sephardic identity. The Haverford College Libraries made much of my research possible. Margaret Schaus helped me find countless primary and secondary sources, and Rob Haley helped bring them to Haverford. Finally, my friends and family have offered much needed support through this long thesis process, and I am so grateful for all they have done for me. iv NOTE ON TRANSLATIONS All translations from Spanish to English are my own for Israel, Mundo Israelita, Los sefaradim y el sionismo, Crónica de una familia sefaradí, El Ladino: dichos y refranes, Cocina sefaradí, El inmigrante: de Alepo a Buenos Aires, La vida según Marcos Levy, Presencia Sefaradí en la Argentina, and Árabes y judíos en Iberoamérica. Gold 1 INTRODUCTION The first Moroccan Jews arrived in Argentina at the end of the nineteenth century, initiating migration waves of Moroccan and (former) Ottoman Jews that lasted until the early 1930s. According to a 1935 report by Simon Weill the overall Jewish population of Argentina grew from 1,572 to 253,242 members between 1888 and 1934. Of this community, 131,000 Jews lived in Buenos Aires in 1934, with the rest dispersed around the country in agricultural colonies or smaller communities. The Sephardic Jews from Morocco and the Ottoman Empire composed a small portion of this population; of the 253,242 Jews in Argentina, the Sephardic community numbered only 43,228, with 24,000 of those Sephardim living in Buenos Aires.1 Scholars and community members have long debated the categorization of Sephardic Jews. The community has roots in medieval Spain, yet expulsion by the Catholic monarchs at the end of the fifteenth century and the subsequent process of diaspora and migration since has broadened the boundaries of this category. Margalit Bejarano defines four categories of Sephardic Jews: Jews with roots in the Iberian Peninsula, from North Africa, Ladino speaking Jews from Turkey, Greece, Rhodes, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, and East Ottoman Jews. However, she concludes that scholars should include any groups who considers themselves Sephardic.2 For this thesis I will lean towards broader definitions and self-definitions, which allow me to recognize the constructed nature of this identity. In newspapers, memoirs, and pamphlets Sephardim identified themselves as part of the community, and therefore their 1 Adriana Brodsky, Sephardi, Jewish, Argentine: Creating Community and National Identity, 1880-1960, Indiana Series in Sephardi and Mizrahi Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016), 17; Simon Weill, “Población Israelita en la República Argentina” (Buenos Aires, 1935), 26, 28–29. The large gap between Argentine national censuses (1914-1947) makes it difficult to determine exact population demographics, and Weill’s estimates have been debated (see: Ira Rosenswaike, “The Jewish Population of Argentina: Census and Estimate, 1887- 1947,” Jewish Social Studies 22, no. 4 (1960): 195–214.) 2 Margalit Bejarano, “Sephardic Communities in Latin America,” Judaica latinoamericana: estudios histórico- sociales, no. 5 (2005): 12–13, 15. Gold 2 experiences of migration warrant attention, regardless of the specificities of their family histories. Migration to Argentina led to the challenge of redefining Sephardic identity in new surroundings. Bejarano notes the particular challenge of forming this identity when not legally enforced, as in the Old World: “In Latin America they had to re-create their Jewish world on a voluntary basis and to adapt themselves to the model of other minority groups as well as to legal requirements.”3 The newfound freedom to self-define religious, cultural, and national identity blurred boundaries since they could vary based on individual understandings of community. Further, Sephardim needed to balance this Sephardic identity against Argentine belonging and other Jewish groups; encounters with new populations compelled Sephardim to “to redefine the boundaries that separated them not only from the ethnic groups that constituted the majority societies, but also from other Jewish groups.”4 The convergence of communities that called themselves Sephardic yet had adopted different traditions during centuries of global dispersion, Ashkenazim, and non-Jewish Argentines forced Sephardim to reconstruct identities created in different surroundings. By 1934 the Sephardic community composed only 17% of the Argentine Jewish community, which also included the larger Ashkenazic community composed of Eastern European Jews.5 The Jewish Colonial Association (JCA) founded by Baron Maurice de Hirsch in 1891 facilitated much of this migration. JCA funds covered the costs of travel from Europe and 3 Margalit Bejarano, “The Sephardic Communities of Latin America: A Puzzle of Subethnic Fragments,” in Contemporary Sephardic Identity in the Americas: An Interdisciplinary Approach, ed. Edna Aizenberg (Syracuse University Press, 2012), 21, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/15101/.